QuoteProject
Through a portrait, we can potentially see everything — the history and depth of a person's life, as well as evidence of a primal universal presence. I have dedicated my life and creative energy to capturing these transcendent moments in which a connection is made between the subject, the photographer, and the viewer.
Joyce Tenneson
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

A portrait captures the essence of a person and creates a connection between the subject, creator, and audience.

Joyce Tenneson's quote speaks to the transformative power of portraiture in art. She suggests that through the act of creating a portrait, one can reveal not only the outward appearance of a subject but also the deeper history and emotional complexity inherent in their life. This process creates a unique bridge that connects the subject, the artist, and the viewer, allowing for a shared experience that transcends mere visual representation.

Themes

PortraitArtConnectionPhotographyEmotion

In practice

Example use cases

During an art exhibit, sharing this quote can help viewers appreciate the emotional depth of the portraits displayed.

More from Joyce Tenneson

I want to allow others to reveal and celebrate aspects of themselves that are usually hidden. My camera is a witness. It holds a light up for my subjects to help them feel their own essence, and gives them the courage to collaborate in the recording of these revelations.
Joyce TennesonRead

Similar quotes

Art isn't only a painting. Art is anything that is creative, passionate and personal. Art is the unique work of a human being created to touch another. Art is created to have an impact, to change someone else.
Seth GodinRead
There is a twinge of abandonment that comes with being a member of the African Diaspora. But 'Black Panther' fearlessly introduces and then complicates this and other deeply held albeit rarely expressed emotions; that indeed is what makes this film so profoundly innovative.
Joy ReidRead
He was one of the masters of the thriller and he really was one of the great signposts, because he took the spy thriller out of the gentility of the drawing room and into the back streets of Istanbul and where it all really happened, ... The Day of the Jackal.
Frederick ForsythRead
You’ll find that the movie business is paid for by those mega movies. The movie business is paid for by Big Macs. By movies as product. Movie studios use that term “product” all the time. Product? You mean you have a lot of stories? No, we have a lot of product. You have stories.
David FincherRead
I would build a cloudy House For my thoughts to live in; When for earth too fancy-loose And too low for Heaven! Hush! I talk my dream aloud - I build it bright to see, - I build it on the moonlit cloud, To which I looked with thee.
Elizabeth Barrett BrowningRead
The Photograph is an extended, loaded evidence — as if it caricatured not the figure of what it represents (quite the converse) but its very existence ... The Photograph then becomes a bizarre (i)medium(i), a new form of hallucination: false on the level of perception, true on the level of time: a temporal hallucination, so to speak, a modest (o)shared(i) hallucination (on the one hand 'it is not there,' on the other 'but it has indeed been'): a mad image, chafed by reality.
Roland BarthesRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.